Mom, ER Worker and Mentor to Native Youth: A Family Remembers Sylvia Morton

More than 60,000 Californians have died from COVID-19, and The California Report Magazine has launched a series to remember some of them. This week, we have a tribute to Sylvia Morton. She worked in the emergency department at Riverside Community Hospital before contracting COVID-19. She died on Jan. 8, 2021 at the age of 61, shortly after losing her son Carlos Jr. to the virus.

If Sylvia Morton was working a shift at the hospital, you would know it. Her penetrating voice was loud and joyful.

"When she was at work she had to wear a button that said, 'I am loud,' so that elders knew that she wasn’t trying to talk at them,' " said Morton's daughter, Yolanda Ballesteros, or "Yolie."

Morton was famous around Riverside Community Hospital for her big hair, hand-beaded earrings and her love of Hello Kitty. She wore a Hello Kitty sweater over her scrubs, along with her bedazzled face mask and shield. Her colleagues could often hear Tejano music star Selena blasting from Morton’s office — especially favorites like "Como La Flor" and "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom."

"She would start dancing and singing and flipping her hair back and forth like she was on stage," Ballesteros said.

Morton’s youngest daughter, Marlene Morton, said her mother loved the artist so much that she changed the name on her hospital badge to Selena. "And she told them, 'OK, my name is Selena. Everybody has to call me Selena,' " Marlene said.

"She was always happy," Ballesteros added. "Even at sad times she would always find the silver lining. She was very uplifting."

Overcoming a Difficult Childhood

Sylvia Morton was born in San Bernardino on May 31,1959. She was a proud member of the Cahuilla Tribe and grew up just south of the San Manuel Indian Reservation.

Her mother died when she was just 3 years old. Her father was an alcoholic, so Morton spent her childhood shuttling between relatives' homes.

"Every single day they had beans," said Ballesteros. "There was always a pot of beans made. And everyone had a ration. And if you were not home in time, then if it was gone, it was gone."

Morton told her daughters about wearing hand-me-downs and borrowing her friends’ dolls. In the absence of the nurturing family she craved, she escaped by watching sitcoms like "Gilligan's Island" and "The Partridge Family."

"She would sing and be a part of the 'Partridge Family,' " said Ballesteros. "It was someplace happy for her, to be somewhere other than stuck in her reality."

In junior high school, Morton took refuge at friends' homes, where she met a tall, green-eyed goofball named Carlos.

"From the moment she met him, she said they would laugh and talk," said Ballesteros. "She said he was so handsome and funny. She was drawn to him like a magnet."

He was drawn to her deep dimples and long black hair. Carlos, who lived with his grandmother, invited Morton for breakfast almost every day so she'd have something to eat before school.

"My mother always said that my dad rescued her," said Ballesteros. "When she was 12 she decided that he was the love of her life and she was going to marry him. And at 15, she did."

Becoming 'Mom' at 15

With her dad’s blessing, the pair married in Mexico and began growing their family immediately. Morton  became a young mom at the age of 15. They had five children.

"We kind of grew up together," said Ballesteros, whose mother had her at 17. She remembered sitting on Morton's longboard and holding onto her leg while skating downtown for snow cones.

"I remember when I was about 4 years old, my mom taught me how to do backflips in our front yard," said Ballesteros. "And she didn’t instruct me. She actually showed me."

Even as a young mom, Morton was committed to providing her children with more than she had had. Her daughters remember Morton "lining us up like little soldiers" to comb their hair and ensure their clothes were clean.

On weekends, the family would pack into their dad’s '51 Chevy Deluxe lowrider, which he built with Carlos Jr. They would cruise around while blasting oldies like Brenton Wood, Morton's favorite.

Leaning Into Ambition

At 26, Morton decided to have another baby, "this time as an adult," said Ballesteros. A few months after giving birth to her baby girl, Marlene, Morton decided to become a certified medical assistant.

"She wanted us to be educated, to have good careers, to be self-sufficient, to take care of ourselves," said Ballesteros. "And she showed us by example how to do that."

Morton's transition back to school wasn't always easy on the family. Especially for 8-year-old Yolie, who had been the youngest child up until recently. Now, she had to help her dad care for baby Marlene.

"During the graduation ceremony she called me up onstage and she gave me the rose that was given with her certificate," said Ballesteros, crying. "She told me I earned it as much as she did."

In the years after, Morton rose through the ranks from certified medical assistant to radiology technician. In 1996, she moved the family to Riverside after landing a job at Parkview Community Hospital. She became the director of emergency room admissions within a few years.

Throughout her career, Morton encouraged young people in the Native American community to dream big, too. A master beader, she learned from the elders around her, and taught weekly art and music classes at the Soboba Tribal TANF. Ballesteros recalled her mother packing the auditorium when talking to students from the local Sherman Indian High School.

"She would let them know that getting your diploma is great and it’s a necessity to move further in life, but there's more," said Ballesteros. "Push yourself to do more."

Morton mentored Native students and hired them whenever she could. Her ambition rubbed off on her own children, too.

"I just knew that she was always happy going to work. She would not ever call off. She always went. If there’s a will, there’s a way," said Marlene Morton. "Like, in the middle of the night she’d be on call. We would be on a family dinner and my mom would tell my dad, 'OK, I'm on call. I need to go.' I wanted to be like my mom."

Almost all of Morton’s family got into the medical field. The baby of the family, Marlene, eventually inherited her mom's job heading up the ER billing and coding for Parkview Community Hospital.

"Now I'm doing a job that my mom created," said the younger Morton. "I didn’t notice until a few years ago that I actually followed my mom's footsteps. We do exactly the same thing for work. It feels amazing."

Working on the Front Lines During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Morton started planning for the COVID-19 pandemic before the outbreaks in California. She and Yolie got to work early sewing masks.

"She'd wear her N95 mask and then she'd wear a bedazzled mask on top of that," said Ballesteros. "I bought her a shield. She bedazzled the shield."

Morton also moved her Native American art classes to YouTube in a series she called "Sylvia Morton's Native Notions." Morton enlisted each of her grandchildren to help make the videos. She squeezed in filming sessions between long, grueling nights in the emergency department at Riverside Community Hospital.

Her daughters begged her to take time off from work.

"At that time that she got COVID, it was like wildfire," said Ballesteros. "I kept telling her, 'You have PTO. Use your time off.' "

Morton insisted on working, explaining that she had a responsibility to help during the COVID-19 crisis.

"I felt a little selfish because I was like, 'Your responsibility is us, your family,' " said Ballesteros. "But she continued to go to work."

The entire family gathered together for the last time on Thanksgiving. Soon after, Morton tested positive for COVID-19. Her son, Carlos Jr., who had also recently started working at the hospital, tested positive, too. Ballesteros said her mother and brother were extremely close.

"She was 15 when she had him," Ballesteros said. "He was a natural-born leader. He really picked that up from my mom."

Morton and Carlos Jr. were treated alongside one another in Room #15 at Parkview Community Hospital. Marlene Morton, who was on staff there, rang in the New Year with them. Carlos Jr. died on Jan. 1, just a few hours later.

"I feel that it was God giving my mom the last few hours with her son," said Marlene Morton. "I think my brother felt comfort the moment he saw my mom and knew that she was in the bed next to him. There didn’t have to be words. They could just look at each other."

Morton was moved out of the room just hours before her son passed away.

"She said she knew within her body and her heart [that he had died]," said Marlene Morton. "She said she knew from her motherly instincts."

Morton’s health declined rapidly after her son passed away. She died a week later on Jan. 8, 2021, at age 61.

Since then, Marlene Morton and Ballesteros say their parents' house feels too quiet. They miss family traditions, like packing the entire family into several cars and caravaning an hour away just to get tacos. But looking back at their mother's life, there’s one thing her daughters know she'd be proud of: her family.

Sylvia Morton is survived by her husband, four children, 11 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

"She was an amazing mother for not being able to have her mother growing up," said Marlene Morton. "You would not believe that this woman could create such a beautiful family."